Reviews By Daniel Acaba

A lot of effort went into Blood Bowl 2, the Legendary Edition even more so. Beautiful graphics, humorous voice acting and a glut of options make for a game that is even more appealing than the table top. Something has been lost in the transfer, mostly the experience of playing with close friends. But if you don’t mind a somewhat spiteful dice roller there’s a lot of fun, and content, to be had here. Just… try not to get too attached to anyone. Read More.

Pillars of Eternity is an amazing game. There was no point in the one hundred plus hours of playing it that something really annoyed me beyond a few minor control quabbles. A few disappointments and difficulty bumps mar the experience but nowhere near enough to negatively impact my enjoyment. Obsidian has managed to make a classic RPG that will be talked about for years to come. Read More.

If I really had to boil Aven Colony down into one word, that word would be relaxing. It’s not the most aggressively deep strategy game on the market nor the most difficult. This is a game that is content to let you sit back, enjoy the music and build an awesome colony on an alien planet. Sometimes that’s really all you want for your money. If you’re coming into this expecting a very deep, challenging experience you will very likely leave disappointed. Read More.

What infuriates me is that The Surge isn’t a terrible game. Realistically speaking it’s a better than average game. It looks great, sounds rather good and is clearly a labor of love. But it’s also a hollow, joyless experience that doesn’t stick with the player. The game provides no mythos to chew on, no interesting concepts to discuss with your fellow players. Months from now the only part of this game I’ll remember is the song that plays during the visits to the Med-Bay. Read More.

Overall though Prey is one of the best games out there right now. It has just about everything that you could ask for from an action-adventure game. The story is gripping and has a surprising depth to it. You’ve got a bevy of equipment, powers and tools to explore the station with. Your enemies are smart, dangerous and numerous. All of this comes together to create a fantastic experience and comes highly recommended. Read More.

What this means is that while Tides of Numenera is a well written experience it has glaring issues. How these issues hamper your experience will vary depending on who you are and how you play your games. If you’re of the mind that combat is unimportant and the writing compensates for the weakness of the NPC’s, great! This will be a winner for you. But if you’re someone who likes having combat as an option and well written NPC companions? You're going to have a more critical experience. Even that said this is an experience any cRPG fan should have at least once. The experience, warts and all, is well worth giving it that chance. Read More.

A game like this has a lot of the features that it would need to make it a success. It looks great, plays great and even snatches musical and sound bites from the show to make it that much more genuine of an experience. But then you start hitting the various speed bumps and your enthusiasm just wanes slowly until all enthusiasm has been sapped. With friends that may not be as big of an issue but solo it happens far too quickly. Bear this in mind when making a purchase. Read More.

Dead Rising 4 is a ridiculously thin experience with little to no redeeming qualities. It looks great, sounds great and plays great but has almost no real substance to justify spending time on it. There are a metric crapload of collectibles to waste your time hunting, lots of crazed survivors and paramilitary troops to cut down and plenty of zany outfits to wear. That’s about it. All in all, you have a wafer thin, ludicrously bland product that is the equivalent of watery oatmeal. It might nourish you, sure, but I hope you didn’t pay good money for it. Read More.

It’s no small claim to say that this game is without a doubt the definitive Forza experience. On one hand the game gives you the street races one would expect of any racing title complete with all of its various complications. Then on the other hand you get some amazing off roading content that really enhances the experience and providing much needed variety for the player. With the staggering amount of content, from the 350+ cars and huge amount of races to the side objectives and collectibles with the beautiful, scenic backdrop there’s no reason for any racing fan to skip on this one. Read More.

If you’ve never played the Darksiders games then nabbing this and the sequel, also available on modern consoles, is a great idea as these are both the definitive versions of these games. If you’ve already played them it there isn't much to entice people who have already played the game. But it is nice and cheap so you pick it up if you want to relive the glory. Read More.

Mortal Kombat X isn’t perfect but very few games truly are. What it is though is a game that does far more right than it does wrong. You’ve got a fun fighting game with an okay story, few fighting games can claim even that. It might be a bit rough around the edges in some parts but it’s a fast paced, aggressive fighting game that’s just pure fun to play. Just avoid the powergamers and trolls online and you’re in for one of the best fighting experiences out there. Read More.

Perhaps my biggest complaint with this DLC is that I wish the main game used more elements from it. This has a great look to it that manages to be creepy while still feeling like you’re in Lara Croft’s world. It doesn’t feel like you slipped and fell into another game like it easy could. Instead it blurs the line between between myth and reality to make Lara question the world around her. It’s a great experience that is rather burdened by the fact that it only lasts for a far too short time. Read More.

Quantum Break is one of the major killer apps coming to the Xbox One this year. It’s been so heavily promoted and recieved a lot of attention but it manages to live up to all of it. It works damn hard to tell an engaging story focusing around time travel while simultaneously being both a great game and a fun tv show. Frankly this is one of the best experiences on the market right now so unless you truly loathe science-fiction works you’re doing yourself a disservice to not pick this one up. Read More.

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition felt like a bit of a mixed bag on the Xbox One. It was just too simple to go back and play the previous version of the game which is still damn good today. The lack of real improvements didn’t make this a “must own” and more of a nice addition to the library. But on PC if you’re even remotely interested in the series or just really like the idea of having that keyboard and mouse gameplay element added then this is a damn fine game. Read More.

Some writing fumbles aside I have a the pleasant time with Syndicate. The Assassin's Creed series has had a bit of a bumpy road lately so it's nice to see the games taking a more solid turn again. Even if it doesn't redefine storytelling or even action-adventure gaming in general it's still a fine addition to any gamer's library. With the talk of Ubisoft taking a break from the yearly releases to drop their next game in 2017 instead, it sounds like more effort will be put into making these top-tier games once again. After Syndicate I have to admit that I'm looking forward to it. Read More.